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My tap water is clean and delicious and I have never, ever had a problem with it. I have never experienced an unscheduled service interruption with my water, an

My tap water is clean and delicious and I have never, ever had a problem with it. I have never experienced an unscheduled service interruption with my water, and scheduled service interruptions are very rare and advertised well in advance. My electricity is stable and reliable, and any power outages I've experienced have been brief, and exclusively due to exceptional weather events. I'm also a Comcast customer, and I would say that I have some sort of partial or total service interruption (internet is completely gone, or set top box stops working) on average, once every other week or so. These outages are usually relatively brief (a few minutes), but at least once a year I lose one or both services for 6 hours or more. Plus the internet speed varies wildly from "high-end dialup modem" at the low end, to "significantly less than the advertised value" at the high end. Needless to say, I have never actually experienced the advertised speeds. If I got the same service from my utilities as I did from Comcast, I would end up brushing my teeth with raw sewage about once a month, and trying to toast bread would occasionally cause a power dip that would brown-out every other outlet in my house. I probably wouldn't be able to shower some nights because the cold water pressure would be unusably low, and I would have to reset every clock in my house a couple times a month. The one similarity is that I would still be unable to shop around for better service, because Comcast is the only option in my area. If you want a TLDR, it's that I would figuratively kill to get Internet service that's even just half as good as my utility service, because right now my internet service is much worse than that.

nickff 12y ago
Why would a lack of service by an internet provider be comparable to a utility pumping sewage? Shouldn't you be looking at water restrictions which the utilities blame on drought? This is the most similar type of event to the Comcast outage which you are describing. Both could have been prevented through better planning, capital expenditures, and forethought. If this is the comparison, both Comcast and many water providers fail, though the internet providers have gradually improving products, while the utilities do not (as far as I know). Most industries' products do not fall from the sky, yet they still manage to provide an adequate supply.
- xamuel 12y ago
  >Why would a lack of service by an internet provider be comparable to a utility pumping sewage? I work partly from home and, while not quite "utility pumping sewage" level of crisis, a badly-timed internet blackout at my apartment can be a serious problem for the whole team.
  - nickff 12y ago
    I agree entirely, it is comparable to a power outage (, which happens quite often both at my residence and place of work).
    - xamuel 12y ago
      Do you live in a jungle or something? Everywhere I've ever lived, including California during the Enron scandal, power outages were an order of magnitude less common than (non-power-outage-related) internet outages.
      - lkbm 12y ago
        My power outages here in Austin seem to be around a couple per year. I think my Internet outages (outside of those resulting from me not having power) are less frequent, though I don't have logs checking. Now, my Internet being slow...that's not uncommon at all. I've also had them randomly charge me an extra $50 "by mistake", as well directly and repeatedly lying to me about what services/packages are available. I'm in central Austin, and so ready for Google Fiber. My parents live out in the middle of nowhere, and Internet outages are quite common for them, easily exceeding power outages.
      - toast0 12y ago
        In Santa Clara County, at my home with Sonic.net Legacy DSL (AT&T DSLAM + ATM/Sonic.net IP), in the past 10 years, I can only recall two internet outages. In one, the telephone was out as well (a fiber cut between the remote terminal and the central office), the most recent one started around the same time as a 30 minute power outage. In contrast, I've had several 30 minute to 2 hour power outages, and lots of power outages lasting less than a minute. On the other hand, a short internet outage would not necessarily be noticed, because there's not a big change in ambient noise when the internet fails, nor do i have to reset the time on my appliances.
cheald 12y ago
Comparing Title II utilities to water and electricity is silly. How happy are you with your landline telephone and cable TV services? You know, the ones that everyone hates and is replacing with internet-carried alternatives?
- chronomex 12y ago
  My landline telephone is very satisfactory. I've never encountered any service disruptions with it. In fact, I can't think of a single time in my entire life where I've picked up the phone and not had a usable dialtone on the other end, or where I've placed a call (to another landline) and received a bad connection. The single time I had a problem with how it was billed, I called the state regulator who worked with my telco to sort out how taxes were being calculated. It turned out that they were billing me correctly, but couldn't explain it over the phone.
  - briandear 12y ago
    How are your download speeds over that landline phone? There's a difference between meeting a minimal level of service and actually delivering innovation, such as speed increases. How do you like your high definition phone calls? You don't have that yet? Crazy. I would thought the phone company would be trying to rush that out the door so as to be more competitive against all of the phone company competition out there.
    - c22 12y ago
      I have never been on a phone call that felt more "high definition" than two landlines connected together unmediated by any voip or cellular link.
  - cheald 12y ago
    My problem with my landline is price ($35/mo to start) and features (practically non-existent, with huge premiums charged for useful things). The service effectively hasn't changed since the 1980s, while the prices have steadily risen. I replaced my landline with an Ooma (a VOIP phone which let me port my old landline number) which sounds WORLDS better, lets me manage personal blocklists, aggregates community blocklists to automatically filter incoming calls from telemarketers, political parties, etc, sends voicemails to my email, integrates with Google Voice, can ring on multiple phones or devices, and other such things. It's in a completely different class of service, and it costs a fraction of what my competing local offerings do.
sbov 12y ago
I had 3 great years of internet in San Francisco with Comcast. It basically was like those utilities: it was always there, around the promised speeds, with 0 outages that I noticed. Considering I work from home, and do all my codework over ssh, I could tell if there was a slowdown for even a few seconds. Then at year 4, for whatever reason, it started to have issues. At least once per month. How I miss those 3 blissful years when it Just Worked.
- altcognito 12y ago
  My experience in a suburban area is relatively similar. I wouldn't be surprised if what it really came down to was that people started streaming video from Netflix, Hulu etc... and simply put, the cable companies have less than zero incentive to optimize that experience.
defineclean 12y ago
> My tap water is clean Define "clean". It may be sanitary but most tap water in the US tastes (and smells) like swimming pool and has tons of other trace amounts of harmful substances in it like benzene, pesticides, styrene, trichloroethylene, pharmaceuticals, etc: http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/ http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_... If you want "clean" water you need water from an aquifer (like Fiji) or water that goes through a reverse osmosis treatment process. Even then it's not going to be perfectly clean, but it'll be a hell of a lot better than the vast majority of tap water out there.
- AlexandrB 12y ago
  What the heck are you talking about? Those two links seem to contradict your point that tap water isn't "clean" since they point out that it is, in fact, very clean. I come from a country where that is not the case and water had to be boiled before you could consume it. Oh yeah, and it wasn't fluoridated so I had multiple teeth rot away before I was 10 years old (luckily I moved to Canada before most of my adult teeth really started growing). I'm also really curious where you get your water since most bottled water comes from "municipal sources" (i.e. it's tap water).
  - defineclean 12y ago
    >Those two links seem to contradict your point that tap water isn't "clean" since they point out that it is, in fact, very clean. If you actually read the links you would see that "clean" is simply defined by the EPA as "what we allow by law". And that there are many chemicals known to be harmful to humans that aren't regulated or monitored at all... not to mention the fact that tap water in many towns and cities across the US regularly has chemical levels that exceed the EPA's defined limits (and many scientists argue that these limits are too high as it is). Here's another link: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities.asp http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities.asp >I'm also really curious where you get your water since most bottled water comes from "municipal sources" (i.e. it's tap water). There are several dispensers in my area that provide reverse osmosis (plus carbon) filtered water (water source is usually local tap water) and it costs about 25 cents a gallon or a dollar for 5 gallons. Most Walmarts have one, back by the beverage section. It's also pretty easy to find inexpensive bottled water that's RO filtered, you just need to look on the bottle and it'll tell you where the water is from and how it is processed/filtered, if at all. >Oh yeah, and it wasn't fluoridated so I had multiple teeth rot away before I was 10 years old (luckily I moved to Canada before most of my adult teeth really started growing). Correlation does not equal causation.

nickff 12y ago

Why would a lack of service by an internet provider be comparable to a utility pumping sewage? Shouldn't you be looking at water restrictions which the utilities blame on drought? This is the most similar type of event to the Comcast outage which you are describing. Both could have been prevented through better planning, capital expenditures, and forethought. If this is the comparison, both Comcast and many water providers fail, though the internet providers have gradually improving products, while the utilities do not (as far as I know). Most industries' products do not fall from the sky, yet they still manage to provide an adequate supply.

xamuel 12y ago
>Why would a lack of service by an internet provider be comparable to a utility pumping sewage? I work partly from home and, while not quite "utility pumping sewage" level of crisis, a badly-timed internet blackout at my apartment can be a serious problem for the whole team.
- nickff 12y ago
  I agree entirely, it is comparable to a power outage (, which happens quite often both at my residence and place of work).
  - xamuel 12y ago
    Do you live in a jungle or something? Everywhere I've ever lived, including California during the Enron scandal, power outages were an order of magnitude less common than (non-power-outage-related) internet outages.
    - lkbm 12y ago
      My power outages here in Austin seem to be around a couple per year. I think my Internet outages (outside of those resulting from me not having power) are less frequent, though I don't have logs checking. Now, my Internet being slow...that's not uncommon at all. I've also had them randomly charge me an extra $50 "by mistake", as well directly and repeatedly lying to me about what services/packages are available. I'm in central Austin, and so ready for Google Fiber. My parents live out in the middle of nowhere, and Internet outages are quite common for them, easily exceeding power outages.
    - toast0 12y ago
      In Santa Clara County, at my home with Sonic.net Legacy DSL (AT&T DSLAM + ATM/Sonic.net IP), in the past 10 years, I can only recall two internet outages. In one, the telephone was out as well (a fiber cut between the remote terminal and the central office), the most recent one started around the same time as a 30 minute power outage. In contrast, I've had several 30 minute to 2 hour power outages, and lots of power outages lasting less than a minute. On the other hand, a short internet outage would not necessarily be noticed, because there's not a big change in ambient noise when the internet fails, nor do i have to reset the time on my appliances.

cheald 12y ago

Comparing Title II utilities to water and electricity is silly. How happy are you with your landline telephone and cable TV services? You know, the ones that everyone hates and is replacing with internet-carried alternatives?

chronomex 12y ago
My landline telephone is very satisfactory. I've never encountered any service disruptions with it. In fact, I can't think of a single time in my entire life where I've picked up the phone and not had a usable dialtone on the other end, or where I've placed a call (to another landline) and received a bad connection. The single time I had a problem with how it was billed, I called the state regulator who worked with my telco to sort out how taxes were being calculated. It turned out that they were billing me correctly, but couldn't explain it over the phone.
- briandear 12y ago
  How are your download speeds over that landline phone? There's a difference between meeting a minimal level of service and actually delivering innovation, such as speed increases. How do you like your high definition phone calls? You don't have that yet? Crazy. I would thought the phone company would be trying to rush that out the door so as to be more competitive against all of the phone company competition out there.
  - c22 12y ago
    I have never been on a phone call that felt more "high definition" than two landlines connected together unmediated by any voip or cellular link.
- cheald 12y ago
  My problem with my landline is price ($35/mo to start) and features (practically non-existent, with huge premiums charged for useful things). The service effectively hasn't changed since the 1980s, while the prices have steadily risen. I replaced my landline with an Ooma (a VOIP phone which let me port my old landline number) which sounds WORLDS better, lets me manage personal blocklists, aggregates community blocklists to automatically filter incoming calls from telemarketers, political parties, etc, sends voicemails to my email, integrates with Google Voice, can ring on multiple phones or devices, and other such things. It's in a completely different class of service, and it costs a fraction of what my competing local offerings do.

sbov 12y ago

I had 3 great years of internet in San Francisco with Comcast. It basically was like those utilities: it was always there, around the promised speeds, with 0 outages that I noticed. Considering I work from home, and do all my codework over ssh, I could tell if there was a slowdown for even a few seconds. Then at year 4, for whatever reason, it started to have issues. At least once per month. How I miss those 3 blissful years when it Just Worked.

altcognito 12y ago
My experience in a suburban area is relatively similar. I wouldn't be surprised if what it really came down to was that people started streaming video from Netflix, Hulu etc... and simply put, the cable companies have less than zero incentive to optimize that experience.

defineclean 12y ago

> My tap water is clean Define "clean". It may be sanitary but most tap water in the US tastes (and smells) like swimming pool and has tons of other trace amounts of harmful substances in it like benzene, pesticides, styrene, trichloroethylene, pharmaceuticals, etc: http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/ http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_water_quality_in_the_... If you want "clean" water you need water from an aquifer (like Fiji) or water that goes through a reverse osmosis treatment process. Even then it's not going to be perfectly clean, but it'll be a hell of a lot better than the vast majority of tap water out there.

AlexandrB 12y ago
What the heck are you talking about? Those two links seem to contradict your point that tap water isn't "clean" since they point out that it is, in fact, very clean. I come from a country where that is not the case and water had to be boiled before you could consume it. Oh yeah, and it wasn't fluoridated so I had multiple teeth rot away before I was 10 years old (luckily I moved to Canada before most of my adult teeth really started growing). I'm also really curious where you get your water since most bottled water comes from "municipal sources" (i.e. it's tap water).
- defineclean 12y ago
  >Those two links seem to contradict your point that tap water isn't "clean" since they point out that it is, in fact, very clean. If you actually read the links you would see that "clean" is simply defined by the EPA as "what we allow by law". And that there are many chemicals known to be harmful to humans that aren't regulated or monitored at all... not to mention the fact that tap water in many towns and cities across the US regularly has chemical levels that exceed the EPA's defined limits (and many scientists argue that these limits are too high as it is). Here's another link: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities.asp http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/uscities.asp >I'm also really curious where you get your water since most bottled water comes from "municipal sources" (i.e. it's tap water). There are several dispensers in my area that provide reverse osmosis (plus carbon) filtered water (water source is usually local tap water) and it costs about 25 cents a gallon or a dollar for 5 gallons. Most Walmarts have one, back by the beverage section. It's also pretty easy to find inexpensive bottled water that's RO filtered, you just need to look on the bottle and it'll tell you where the water is from and how it is processed/filtered, if at all. >Oh yeah, and it wasn't fluoridated so I had multiple teeth rot away before I was 10 years old (luckily I moved to Canada before most of my adult teeth really started growing). Correlation does not equal causation.